1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image recording apparatus, an image recording method, and a storage medium storing a program, suitable for, for example, a digital camera configured to record shot images to which shooting location information is added.
2. Description of the Related Art
Various apparatuses have been proposed which collect image data items obtained by shooting into folders suitably on the basis of shooting dates and times, Global Positioning System (GPS) information, and others stored in such a manner that they are related to the data items and organize the folders into an electronic photo album (e.g., Jpn. Pat. Appln. KOKAI Publication No. 2005-107867).
Many conventional electronic photo album devices, including the one disclosed in the above patent document, adopt a method of collecting and classifying image data items in an integrated manner on the basis of, for example, shooting dates and times or shooting locations and then organizing the data items into a photo album after the classification.
Therefore, a part may have many image data items recorded in it and another part have no image data item recorded in it at all, depending on a date, a place, or the like. Even in the same place, image data items completely differing in date may be mixed. In such a case, collection of images to be displayed might be biased, and/or collected image data items might be unnaturally displayed. Since the image data items are organized into a photo album on the basis of results of collection, a connection between the previous and next images might not be understood from the created photo album.
It is thus desired to provide an image recording apparatus, an image recording method, and a storage medium storing a program, with improved user-friendliness, for example, capable of retrieving a desired image efficiently even from a large number of recorded images, through a natural and comprehensible manner of collection of the images.